The Wind that Lived
by AegisX-TAIL
Summary: The war ended, Voldemort died and Harry was gone. The golden trio is broken. HPxLL


The Wind that Lived

By AGX[tail]

_**Well, another. Yes. Another. But yeah, though. I don't own Harry Potter. I don't own Kaze no Stigma. And I don't own the song nor the lyrics of Yoko Kano's – Rain song. Yep, now. On with the show.**_

_**Summary**__**: **__The war ended, Voldemort died and Harry was gone. The golden trio is broken. HPxLL_

"_I wasn't born to be eaten by a demon…_"

He sat up with a gasp, his eyes wide and blood shot as he took in his surroundings. Home. He was in his apartment and once again having a nightmare. He ran a hand through his hair, taking a shaky breath before slumping back onto his bed. 'Goddamn nightmare. As if I don't have enough things to remind me and now this?'

He glanced at the clock on the nightstand next to his bed. It read four am; he wasn't going to be getting back to sleep any time soon and so he stood up, stretching for a few moments before starting his morning workout. An hour later, he stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom taking in his appearance.

His once untamable hair was slicked back and spiked, leaving his unblemished forehead on display. Where once lay a thin lightning bolt scar, there was nothing, as prophecy had been fulfilled. Emerald green eyes stared back at him from his reflection, after corrective eye surgery had fixed his sight and his need for glasses. He was still thin, but it was a runner's physique, and the once underfed appearance he had was gone.

"Shouldn't even be in this country again…" he muttered as he stepped out of his hotel room, clad in black jeans, a green t-shirt with a black unbuttoned dress shirt over it. For a brief moment, the wind picked up and swirled around him before he vanished completely. He stood in front of a grave, a small bundle of flowers in his hand as he looked down at the headstone. No one could find out that they had come back and so, her grave was unnamed, with only the symbol of a moon carved onto it.

"Came back to see you, L-lu-…" He went quiet. He couldn't say her name, as much as he'd tried, he couldn't. "Things are getting out of control and again, I'm probably at the center of the things." He sighed, wishing that at least there had been some way for her to come back, as a ghost or something... but with what had happened to her, there wasn't any way of coming back. And that made the pain even worse than it already was.

After an hour spent sitting in silence in front of her grave, he stood up. Out of his pants pocket, he pulled a necklace made of butterbeer corks and placed it on top of the headstone. "I still have the one you gave me." He stood there for a few minutes more before it was time to go.

"Bye. Maybe this time I won't let another year pass before visiting you again." He vanished in a swirl of wind, leaving behind only the slightly ruffled flowers on the unnamed grave and the butterbeer cork necklace.

***

_I don't feel a thing,  
And I stopped remembering,  
The days are just like moments turned to hours…_

Days really were just like moments turned to hours, weren't they? The song always made her reminisce about the old days, the days when she was part of the Golden Trio. The days before Voldemort's return and all the good times she'd had with her two best friends. It also brought up memories of their separation, when the trio broke and everyone went their own way. It made her feel depressed. With a shake of her head, she sighed and pushed that thought to the back of her mind while she went about procuring lunch.

_If there is a hell,  
I'm sure this is how it smells,  
I wish this were a dream, but no, it isn't…_

After settling down to a quick meal of fish and chips, she once again lost herself in the memories of her past. The discovery of being a witch had brought amazing changes in her life along with terrible ones. From the beginning of her magic school education at Hogwarts, she'd managed to get involved as one of the members of the Golden Trio. Herself, Ronald Weasley and of course, the reason why they'd become so widely known; Harry Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived and of course, the slayer of Voldemort.

All three of them had been involved in some kind of trouble every year. First it was the Sorcerer's Stone and then it was the Chamber of Secrets and third year brought about Sirius Black's escape from Azkaban. Their fourth year was tinted in sadness because of Cedric Diggory's death along with terror due to Voldemort's rebirth. Fifth year brought injustice against Harry perpetrated by the Minister of Magic himself along with the death of Sirius and Voldemort was finally revealed to the public. Sixth Year began with murders and ended with Albus Dumbledore's death and ended Voldemort's quiet approach at a war against the Ministry. Seventh year was highlighted by the destruction of Voldemort's Horcruxes, the very items that provided him with his escape from death the first time he tried to kill Harry. And the end of the year brought the end of the war along with the death of Voldemort.

She sighed once more as she thought about her missing friend. After graduating from Hogwarts, Harry vanished. He left the wizarding world and left them behind. Left her behind, as he went off into the night to make a new life for himself.

She binned the meager remains of her lunch and headed back to work. After all, the Department of Mysteries wasn't going to wait patiently for her, after all. It took awhile for her to navigate through the public entrance of the ministry, with most of the crowds avoiding the unspeakable that walked through their midst.

As she rode the lift down, she caught sight of a poster on the wall announcing the next Chuddley Cannon's match and she snorted. She had tried, she really had tried to make things work with Ron after Harry left but there was always his insecurity and then afterwards, there was the fame that went to his head. The Daily Prophet had been the cause of that, labeling Ron and Hermione along with Harry as the key heroes in destroying the evil tyrant Voldemort. Now, Ronald Bilius Weasley, former friend of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger behaved like a Malfoy… well, not as bad but it was enough.

She shook her head, wondering if listening to her music at the moment was being counter-productive or not. Hermione exited the elevator and walked towards the jet black door at the end of the hallway, passing the door that led to courtroom 10. As she stepped through the black door, she found herself facing a circular room with doors all around it. With a lurch and a scrape of stone, the walls began to spin fast enough for the blue torches by each door blurred into a single line. After a few seconds, the room stopped spinning and the door in front of Hermione opened.

Inside the room stood a bloodied stone table with strange glyphs carved around it. It was one of the department's latest finds, after a massive energy flare a year before surged throughout most of Britain. It had been used as a sacrificial altar; that was for certain but what they were sacrificing for? Heavy traces of elemental energies were found in the room; most specifically it was the element of wind. With the damage all around the room, it was hard to tell what exactly had gone on but with the blood on the altar and a dark taint that marked the floor before it, it was obvious as to what happened.

A demon was summoned, that's what everything pointed towards but… it had gone wrong, that was for sure. Because no other signs of the demon's escape were found, not even signs that it had escaped in a body. The only reason the Department of Mysteries had picked it up was to keep it from being used again by the wrong people. As she walked towards the stone where the blood was spilled, there was a pulse and a dark ominous glow from the stone.

Hermione backed away, even as several alarms went off and more personnel entered the room. Whatever demon was sealed in there was reacting with something and standard procedure was to lock it down. Wards were snapped up as a dark wind swirled around the room, slowly shifting into that of a vortex around the altar table. Three more Unspeakables entered the room and rushed towards the group warding. After a few moments, what sounded like a roar of anger snapped out and the wind died out in the room. "Keep this room under quarantine until we figure out why it was trying to get out." The Department head himself was there.

"Granger, what happened?"

"I walked into the room, ready to continue with my observations and sketching but when I neared the altar it reacted." The scholar within Hermione wanted to know the answers to many of the questions the altar had caused but even she recognized the danger the carved stone altar represented. After all, she was in charge of studying it and try as she might, the only thing she had managed to uncover was that there was a demonic presence encased in the stone.

_**TBC…**_

_**A/N- How's that for a beginning? See you all in a bit…**_


End file.
